“We are extremely pleased to announce a new collaboration with
Boehringer Ingelheim, a very innovative pharmaceutical company with a
long tradition both in the field of therapeutic proteins and of
small-molecule pharmaceuticals. After the initial clinical collaboration
with Boehringer Ingelheim in the immune-oncology space announced in
2016, this second partnership underlines the good relationship between
the two companies. We are both committed to the creation of new
pharmaceutical agents, which may help treat serious unmet medical needs
and provide a benefit to patients. ESAC technology is ideally suited for
the identification of synergistic chemical fragments, which recognize
adjacent binding sites on the surface of the target protein of interest.
We are confident that ESAC technology will facilitate hit and lead
discovery activities, complementing the strong Medicinal Chemistry
technologies already established at Boehringer Ingelheim”, commented
Prof. Dario Neri, co-founder and President of the Scientific Advisory
Board of Philogen.

ESAC technology represents an innovative proprietary methodology for the
construction and screening of DNA-encoded chemical libraries of
unprecedented size and quality. ESAC libraries, which are generated by
the combinatorial self-assembly of encoded libraries of very high
purity, are different compared to conventional single-pharmacophore
chemical libraries.

Darryl McConnell,Vice President and Head, Boehringer Ingelheim
Research Site Austria, said, “We are very excited about the opportunity
to apply Philochem’s DNA-encoded library technology to drugging
intractable proteins. We believe that Philochem’s unique chemistry
combined with Boehringer Ingelheim’s capabilities in discovering novel
drugs could accelerate the optimization of chemical starting points to
potent drug candidates”.

No financial details of the agreement were released.

About the Philogen group

Philogen is a Swiss-Italian clinical-stage company engaged in the
discovery and development of novel pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical
products. Philogen’s strategy is to deliver bioactive agents, for
example cytokines or drugs, to the site of disease using antibodies and
other ligands that specifically and efficiently target stromal antigens.
This technology has generated a strong proprietary pipeline of
clinical-stage products and also pre-clinical compounds in an array of
disease indications. Philogen is headquartered in Siena, Italy, and has
research activities at its subsidiary company Philochem in Zürich,
Switzerland. Philogen is independently owned, and has signed agreements
with several major pharmaceutical companies. For more information please
visit www.philogen.com.

About Philochem’s ESAC platform and DNA-Encoded Chemistry technology

The proprietary ESAC platform and DNA-Encoded Chemistry technology were
developed by Philochem scientists in collaboration with the group of
Prof. Dario Neri at ETH Zurich during the past decade. These two
powerful and complementary discovery technologies allow to screen up to
billions small molecules and to further optimize the hit compounds in a
fully automatic, DNA-tagged, fragment-based drug discovery manner.